WEST COUNTRY NEWS

Orcas Draw

A ten-man Sandford Orcas team visited Bath on 9th February to play the local League. The evening started with a bit of a panic as the Orcas' Captain, Roy Foster, went missing from a four car convoy which was travelling from the Bath HQ to the venue for the match. Luckily, after much to-ing and fro-ing, 1½ hours and a couple of gallons of petrol later, he met up again with the Bath captain, Dave Lord. In their match, which was reduced to 60 minutes because of the delays, Dave reversed the result of their previous meeting with a comfortable win 252-174. The final match score was a draw with each team winning five games apiece. The highest break came from E. Pitts with 62 and the highest 75 minute score was 386 from K. Langley.

Results (Bath names first)

Sidwell SC Monthly Handicap

There was no January tournament at Sidwell SC, so two were held at the Exeter club in February. The first tournament was without top regulars Eddie Andress and Brian Harvey but the field was still peppered with players of a good standard along with a couple of new entrants. Dave White (owe 140) from Cornwall proved to be the man in form comfortably defeating "Mr. Consistency", Chris Mitchell (owe 120) in the final 200-86 with the aid of the best break of the day, a fine 114. In earlier rounds White also had breaks of 81 & 77. The only other break over 50 was posted by Chris Mitchell 57 in the round robins. The second tournament saw Brian Harvey (owe 220) in a class of his own. In the final he inflicted the biggest defeat of the day beating Steve Canniford (owe 40) 200-26. Brian averaged over 500 points an hour for the day and posted several good breaks, the best being 92 and a 78 unf. which he took on to 149. Other breaks were posted by Bill Andress 111, 78 unf. & 75, and Steve Canniford 79 unf. Report-Steve Canniford. Wessex Individual Championship

The final of the Wessex Billiards and Snooker Association's Billiards Championship took place at the Bradford Abbas Sports and Social Club, near Yeovil, on Friday 6th April. Frequent winner Brian Harvey, from Bridgwater added to his tally by defeating Mike Allen from Weston- Super-Mare in the final.

Mike Allen (left) cues up with Brian Harvey before the start of the Wessex Championship final.

The match had started fairly slowly with Allen building a well- constructed break of 56 and showing some solid potting skills, creeping ahead by 100 points after 20 visits to the table. There was little change in this situation until Brian Harvey suddenly hit better form with three quick breaks of 73, 35 and 68, putting him in a strong position being 65 in front. By the interval, Harvey had recorded a further break of 36, and had advanced his score to 415 with Allen on 294. Harvey returned for the second session with early breaks of 125, 88 and 67 and having seized the advantage, then closed the game down, successfully preventing Allen from any chance of a comeback. The final scores were Brian Harvey 750 points and Mike Allen 351. In the semi- finals. Harvey had beaten Phil Davis and Mike had triumphed against Justin Cole. The final was refereed by Mr Ken Sparrow and Mr Dave Harris, Chairman of the Sanford Orcas Billiards League, presented the Trophies.

Wrington vs. Exeter Billiards Challenge

Saturday 13th April saw the fourth in the series of challenge matches between Wrington Vale and Exeter & District leagues with the local side still to record a victory although the last meeting in Exeter resulted in an 18-18 tie. This time the match was held at the Mizzymead Recreation Centre in Nailsea and 12 players from each league turned up at 11.00 to start a marathon of 42 matches over Handicap, Cannons and Doubles rules.

The opening exchanges went in favour of the home side especially when Steve Roberts hit a 50 break in his first match which was quickly followed by Wessex Five Counties' runner up Mike Allen recording of a 67 which was to prove the highest break of the day. At the luncheon interval, Wrington Vale held a lead of 8-4 and throughout the afternoon retained their lead although Exeter were beginning to make inroads with Steve Canniford's two breaks of 40+ providing the impetus to their recovery.

At 19-19 with just 4 Doubles matches left, Exeter went in front for the first time when Steve Canniford & Don Humphries won by 18 points over Mike Allen and Simon Cambridge despite a great fight back from an 80 point deficit by the Wrington duo. Irving Prowse and Alan Spear achieved parity for the home side when they defeated Tom Ogg & John Hill in a nail-biting 40th game by just 2 points. Bob Selby & Reuben Hurse then took on Bob Mair & Richard Reid and the pressure was telling as all 4 players failed to take advantage of chances they would normally grasped although Bob & Reuben did enough to put Wrington ahead again with a 100-90 win. This left the match at 21-20 and, with tension mounting, Martyn Howell & Wayne Ticer had the chance to seal victory for Wrington against Peter Wide & Syd Snow. However, they found Peter continuing the good form he had shown all afternoon and despite a great break by Martyn towards which closed the gap to 96-95, Peter held his nerve to secure the 5 points to level the scores at 21-21.

So, once again, Wrington just failed to gain a victory and with the return in Exeter some seven months away, you can be sure that their will be some concerted practice going in before then!

A special well done to Backwell's Alan Spear who was making his debut in this series of matches and was the only player from both sides to come away with a four out of four winning run. Report—Bob Selby (Wrington Vale Billiards & Snooker League).